Our last stop on our trip was spending the night in Stuart, VA. Our friends Tanja and Jeff live in an old farm house with about a billion animals all around. Pretty much heaven! The animals are a result of Tanja's involvement with a local animal rescue group. Most of them were abused or abandoned and have found a wonderful new home on their farm. If I remember correctly there were 3 goats, 2 sheep, 2 horses, a donkey named Elliot, 5 dogs, 5 ducks, a few visiting geese, 5 guinea hens and 20-something cats! The cats of course were my favorite (if I had to pick). There were house cats and barn cats, forest cats and porch cats! Inside the house there was a cat room where the fosters were kept while waiting for adoption.

(Elliot the donkey... hanging out by the barn... goat head butts!)

Tom snapped plenty of photos of the goats and Elliot the donkey but the horses and sheep were pretty shy. Well, except for when Tom would kneel down to take a photo. Then the sheep would sneak up behind him to check him out!

(goats like to have their photos taken too... I was on a hair-washing strike on our trip - day six!)

I think if Tom had to pick a favorite it may have been Barney the three-legged chow. He is the resident watch dog and just one big teddy-bear of a dog. And then there was Love Bug the cat who sort of thought he was a dog and followed us everywhere we went. Too cute!

Tanja treated us to lots of hearty food during our visit including fresh duck eggs for breakfast. I'd never eaten duck eggs but I'm always up for trying something new and I have to say it was quite good! They're a bit larger than chicken eggs and have a creamier texture. I imagine they would be wonderful to bake with.

While we were visiting I was wonderfully inspired by all of the work Tanja is doing with the local animal rescue group. I was hoping there would be a way to donate help directly to her group. Then I found out that they work with PetFinder.com for all of their adoptions and donations. If you'd like to support Tanja and so many others like her, or if you're thinking adding a pet to your family, I highly recommend that you take a moment to learn a bit more about Pet Finder.

34 comments:

I love the H&M dress, probably because it looks like it's made of chambray. It looks like you had a fun time on the farm, what an amazing place to visit. I think Eliott the donkey would be my favourite!

I'm absolutely in love with this entire post. For one, you always have the most gorgeous photos I've ever seen. Truly. For two, you might know that I'm vegan so there's very little that I enjoy more than farm sanctuaries. And that beautiful old farmhouse? Ah, icing on the cake! I wish I could visit them and spend the day with the animals. One of the sweetest animals I've ever met was a blind cow at the Maple Farm Sanctuary here in MA.

i love all the pictures you always upload to your blog and i ask myself how you have so much time to take them, cause, for example, i don't have any time to go to a special place to take pictures.... anyway, really nice pictures :) you have really nice clothing too :D

Being around so many animals looks like a dream to me. Amazing! Love your outfit, too... I have a similar dress (with puffy sleeves, not cuffed sleeves) and it's one of my favorites. I love how you styled it with the hat.

I notice that you deleted the post about the abandoned house full of clothes. Given that several people wrote in about that, don't you think you should address it? Or are you just going to sell the clothes in your shop anyway?

I love the photos! I also can not believe that you went 6 days with out washing your hair! I could never do that. You are lucky to get me one day. But I have pretty limp oily hair so that may be the difference